Yahoo! recently announced its new light-weight browser, Axis, which is a plug-in to desktop browsers and a stand-alone app on mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad. It combines searching and browsing – populating instant answers and highly-visual previews as searchers type.

In the short term, brands that utilize SEO best practices for visual search are most likely to succeed on Axis. Because searchers can preview pages before they click, a clearly-structured, eye-catching landing page is more likely to entice users (Axis is geared towards mobile—brands must have mobile-optimized websites!).

Yahoo!’s Axis has the potential to change the paid search advertising landscape, especially on tablets. However, Yahoo! must first drive user adoption. In the meantime, brands should focus on mobile SEO best practices with emphasis on creating and optimizing visual content.

Tweens are defined as being 8 to 12 years old, with a projected population of 23 million by 2020

The key for brands is to understand exactly how tweens want to participate across platforms and how they engage with their ecosystem of peers and branded content

Social – Tweens are constantly seeking new places to connect with friends. These places include parent-approved social networking sites like Everloop, content creation sites like FashionPlaytes.com and video-sharing sites like KidzVuz.

Brand advocates – participants who use social media to not only interact with brand pages, but also to actively promote the brands, products and services they love

Many advocates on social media are younger, highly influential among their social circles, especially socially savvy and want to help others and provide advice

By leveraging connections with these everyday influencers, brands can amplify word-of-mouth online and increase engagement

Do this by: Providing great experiences, not just one-off deals; making brand advocates feel special and don’t ignore their advice or suggestions

-Google+ Unlocks the Power of Zagat With ‘Local’ Tab (Google)

Google+ rolled out a new ‘Local’ tool that allows users to share and find information about nearby place

The new “Local” tab encourages users to learn more about the places around them providing a Google+ page that will appear with photos, as well as Zagat scores and summaries, reviews from people you know and other information such as addresses and hours of business

Overall, local search also just got a lot more social for Google, as it has recently in a different way for Bing

Google has just pushed out the first update to its recent webspam-fighting Penguin algorithm – Penguin 1.1

Google has described Penguin as an algorithm change that’s aimed at webspam and, more specifically, “sites that we believe are violating Google’s quality guidelines”

Because it’s an algorithmic change, Google said it wouldn’t consider reconsideration requests made via Webmaster Central, but it did setup a form for webmasters to use if they believe Penguin had hit their sites by mistake

-Facebook is attempting its third effort in building a smartphone (Facebook)

Facebook seems well positioned in certain ways to enter the smartphone market

It already has an entire operating system complete with messaging, calendar, contacts and video, and an immense app store is on its way with thousands of highly popular apps

There’s also that billion-dollar camera app, in the form of Instagram

Facebook also faces hurdles: Facebook, which has had a contentious relationship with Apple, is still not integrated into iOS; Facebook would not necessarily challenge Apple, but rather Facebook vs. Google, which makes the Android operating system, with both companies going after a huge number of buyers of lower-priced smartphones

The magazine Teen Vogue is ready to begin promoting Aug. 11 as a national day for back-to-school shopping

The August issue of the magazine, on sale on July 3, will have a back-to-school theme, and there will be additional content on teenvogue.com

There are plans for an iPhone app, called Teen Vogue Insider, timed for Back-to-School Saturday

Teen Vogue has two dozen advertisers taking part, like American Eagle Outfitters, Express, and H&M, all of them reliant on the back-to-school season for revenue

Back-to-School Saturday represents an “opportunity to get out in front of this key audience and gives shape and focus to something that’s already existed, elevating it, event-izing it and celebrating it”

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